Neighbors: Walgreens is prescription for traffic woes

Holden -- Anyone from Holden or nearby commuting towns probably already knows
what nearly 50 residents told a Walgreens development team on May 30: making a
left-hand turn from the south side of Main Street during any of the peak hours
is nearly impossible.

Neighbors are concerned a Main Street Walgreens will make that same turn
impossible. Period.

A two-hour meeting between the Walgreens development team and 50 attendees,
mostly from the center and Laurelwood Road-Holt Road neighborhoods, placed
traffic analyst Bob Michaud of MDM Transportation on the hot seat explaining how
the proposed plan will deal with those issues.

Michaud, along with The Richmond Group representative John Stewart,
Richmond's attorney Robert Longden of Bowditch and Dewey, and engineer Rich
Williams of Hayes Engineering presented the plan at the Holden Senior Center to
an invited crowd of neighbors who have organized and kept communication going,
both with each other and with the development team, since the project was first
rumored last year.

The May 30 meeting wasn't the first time Holden residents have seen the plan.
The first public rollout of the proposed store at the April 23 select board
meeting brought groans from the crowd when the usual Walgreens brick façade
appeared on screen.

The most recent plan presented to neighbors May 30 included a revision of the
façade, a different style and siding in a soft yellow that resembles clapboard.
The façade, Longden said, is "more colonial in nature, more in keeping with what
people are telling us they'd like to see on Main Street." The clapboard-look
siding is called "hardy plank" a concrete and wood fiber material.

The 14,500-square-foot store is planned for the 72,000 square feet of land
that presently houses a Verizon building facing Holt Road, the Caswell King
Funeral Home and a building that houses Love Realty, both facing Main Street.
Those three lots, presenters said, now have six entrances/exits; the Walgreens
plan includes only four, one of which is for emergency or delivery vehicles
only.

The plan includes green space with no asphalt along the front of the
building, a bench and handicapped access in that landscaped area, a driveway
along the west side of the building paralleling Laurelwood Road with the
existing trees there to remain, and 73 parking spaces along the Holt Road side
of the building. There are two Main Street entrances (including a one-way
entrance to the drive-thru pharmacy at the rear of the building), and an
entrance/exit on Holt Road for customer traffic. A narrower entrance/exit on
Laurelwood Road would be used for emergency and delivery vehicles only.

The rear of the site is buffered by a 20-foot swath of landscaping and an
eight-foot cedar fence. Richmond Group representatives say they're considering
lighting that echoes the Main Street lighting fixtures and flaps that will
direct lighting away from residences who abut the site. Lights will only be on
when the store is open, between 9 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. A sign at the corner of
Holt Road would be lit from the ground as opposed to being lit internally.

Many plan's element are compromises forged in discussions with town
officials, Town Manager Brian Bullock and Growth Management Director Dennis
Lipka, and after less formal discussions with abutters, and based on reactions
at the public presentation on April 23.

More changes could be in the offing.

"This is not etched in stone," Stewart said. "I may not be able to
incorporate all your thoughts, but we'll be as flexible as we can and make it a
project we can all be proud of."

It was traffic residents wanted to talk about. Michaud's study showed that
about 24,000 vehicles a day use Main Street; Saturdays are lighter, with 21,000
vehicles. Michaud said Walgreens expects about 60 transactions an hour, mostly
from passersby who stop for a last-minute gallon of milk or who drive through to
pick up prescriptions.

At least one traffic feature finds developers caught between the proverbial
rock and a hard place. Town bylaws demand 73 parking spaces for a building of
that size; Walgreens would have required only about 60. Neighbors, too, would
prefer fewer parking spaces, and the project may be negotiating in the future to
"bank" some of the spaces, that is, build fewer than the 73 but with the option
to build the rest in the future.

Michaud highlighted some safety improvements the plan would make, including
widening Holt Road from its current 21 feet wide to 36 feet wide along the
section between Walgreens and Subway building, and making three lanes that will
include a turning lane for left-turning traffic to queue up without preventing
right turning traffic from moving onto Main Street.

The plan also includes changing the angle at which Boyden Road enters Main
Street. The current angle has drivers merging at a 45-degree angle, a situation
presenters said encourages merging after a rolling stop instead of a full stop.
The intersection would be straightened to a 90-degree angle to slow drivers
down.

Those changes, Michaud said, should have been part of the Main Street
reconstruction project the town completed several years ago.

One suggested change to help traffic flow -- moving the pedestrian light that
is now basically idle just a few yards east of Holt Road -- has been judged not
feasible by MassHighway, which has jurisdiction over Main Street (Route 122A)
because it's a state road.

Holt Road residents aren't necessarily pleased about a winder street, saying
it won't solve the traffic problems. One resident last week said she winds her
way through the parking lots east of Holt Road in order to take even a right
turn onto Main Street during peak traffic hours. She also asked why Holt Road
needs to be widened to accommodate exiting traffic from Walgreens, asking the
developer to stack traffic waiting to exit onto Main Street in their own parking
lot.

Michaud said emergency access is an issue they've been asked to consider. The
widening of Holt Road and the addition of the exit onto Holt would add another
access for emergency vehicles in the event traffic or an accident blocked the
other points of access, he said.

Michaud said the traffic impact would be minimal on the neighborhood, but
neighbors took issue with that assessment, pointing to the minimal traffic now
from the three tenants of the lots that would be combined for a Walgreens.

Neighbors were divided on the placement of a drive-thru window; abutters
hoped to mitigate the noise by keeping the drive-thru on the rear side facing
their properties, rather than placing trash and utilities there. Others feared
that vehicles will use the emergency/delivery entrance on Laurelwood as access
to the drive-thru, which they could not do if the drive-thru was placed before
the emergency access entrance on the Laurelwood side. Developers said they are
considering flipping the two.

Though the development team has made several changes and indicated a
willingness to make more and meet with neighbors whenever they'd like, one thing
neighbors would like to see is unlikely: downsizing the store.

That action, taken by CVS to avoid review by the Cape Cod Commission, made
those stores under 10,000 square feet; Walgreens' protocol for a profitable
store requires more like 14,000 square feet. Stewart said in the years he's
worked with Walgreens he's never seen one below about 13,500 square feet.

Holt Road resident Chuck Foley was concerned that Walgreens might not be
profitable at the site because of the difficulty entering and exiting.

"If you're going to Rutland and you try to make a left turn there, you can't
get out," Foley said.

Foley was concerned that lack of profitability would cause the developer to
vacate the area, leaving the town with an abandoned white elephant.

One attendee noted that while the Walgreens development team has met with
town officials, no town officials attended the May 30 meeting to answer
questions.

The project that's been discussed for months informally has finally moved
closer to the official phase. The developer has applied for four waivers from
the zoning board of appeals regardin entrances and exits, their width and
placement.

The project will also face several more hearings at the ZBA, the planning
board and with MassHighway before a shovelful of dirt is
turned.